The sense of sight is utterly compelling to those human beings who possess it. The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words resonates with an appreciation of the profound importance of taking in visual information. The sense of sight is unique in allowing us to absorb so much information from our world so quickly. It is natural then that advertisers, entertainers, artists, and others all want to engage people with their own visual content for the purpose creating a desired response in their intended audience. A large scale visual display system is a particularly compelling way for people to experience the presentation of visual information and such systems are the focus of the present disclosure.
There are numerous features of a visual display system that contribute to its impact upon viewers including: size, brightness, contrast, color saturation, color depth, display refresh rate, resolution, pixel pitch, pixel pitch uniformity, and others.
There are numerous other features of a visual display system that are of interest to the owners and operators of such systems including: ease of installation, ease of service, reliability, ease of configuration, ease of maintenance, ease of operation, cost of the system, cost of installation, cost of operation, cost of service, and others.
Display systems with large screen sizes present a number of difficult problems that are in need of solution. A typical mounting environment for a large display is on the outside structure of an existing building. Buildings are often situated so that the walls of the building are close to one or more real estate property boundaries. Installing a display system onto the outside of a building that is already constructed runs the risk of straying into the air rights of an adjacent real estate parcel because of the added thickness of the display system. If the display system is too thick the owner of the system may be forced to either remove the system or obtain the air rights in the adjacent real estate lot at added expense.
Another difficult problem in need of solution relates to the mounting of a large display on the outside of a building. The outer envelop of many buildings is constructed of brick, stone, concrete, and other materials that may be strong in compression, but weak in tension. The tension component of the structural load created by mounting a display system to the outside of a building is increased by both the thickness and the weight of the display system, especially when the system is mounted in a cantilevered configuration.
Yet another difficult problem in need of solution is that the outer envelop of most buildings is neither designed nor constructed to provide a smooth, even mounting surface, having no discontinuities. What is needed is a mounting system that is able to smooth out the unevenness of the underlying building structure so that the viewing plane of the large display shows no discontinuities and no unevenness.
In consideration of the foregoing points, it is clear that embodiments of the present disclosure confer numerous advantages and are therefore highly desirable.